


Family

by Grinner_H



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/pseuds/Grinner_H





	Family

_Her hand is like a song,_ Squalo muses, astute eyes traversing the elegant arch of Bianchi's wrist; over her long, slender fingers which appear better suited to piano keys and stems of wine glasses than the Beretta M9 that's strapped to her thigh - visible through the high slit of her shimmering black dress - to the cigarette that dangles between them like a broken coda. 

Bianchi sits like a statue, still but for the minute motions of her cigarette to her lips, the quiet inhale-exhale of dancing smoke curls that is almost _reverent_ like an old, cherished rhyme.

Squalo doesn't understand how she parks herself so elegantly upon the wide stone balustrade, in a manner that speaks of subtle grace as much as overt threat.

In some ways, she reminds him of his mother. _Some,_ and not _all,_ because Lucia Squalo would always be _class_ over _crass,_ and there are many edges yet to Bianchi left unrefined.

As if to prove this point - as if she could read his thoughts the way certain sneaky illusionist _bastards_ often did - she intones, _"So."_

A single word, a simple beginning - loaded with meaning, yet meaningless with nothing to follow it. She dangles the word in this pregnant pause, like the way her dying cigarette hangs from between her genteel fingers, like the tendrils of pale pink hair that's escaped from her elaborate updo, curling around the oval frame of her porcelain complexion.

The effect is like millions of fingernails running along millions of chalkboards. It makes Squalo's skin crawl with the trepidation of the unknown and the promise of something unpleasant that's most assuredly _coming._

He masks the dread - that infernal annoyance at never being able to figure her out - with nonchalance; shifting his weight casually atop the stony surface beside her, inhaling his own brand of cancer and regarding her with a raised eyebrow. _"So?"_

She looks at him then - with no turn of her head, merely a flicker of her jade gaze toward his quicksilver own; like that minuscule pause, that barely noticed intake of breath between one bar and the next.

She looks at him as if he's not worth her time - and he _knows,_ and knows that _she_ knows, that that's not true. Because _she_ came out here to join _him,_ to share in the comfort of tobacco and silence, in opposition to the raucous party crowd some few feet away; separated only by the double doors leading to the ballroom of the Cavallone estate - the one she's had her gaze so fixedly upon since she came out here, as if daring anyone to interrupt this momentary peace, as if daring herself to go back in.

And Squalo _knows_ that even if he doesn't fathom her (he was never altogether great with _women,_ anyway), they share more than cigarettes and silence; for they are here on the night of the Cavallone don's thirty-fifth birthday not out of duty or obligation, but out of _love._

 _"So,"_ Bianchi begins again, and Squalo notes the tiniest upward quirk of her lips that's just _this_ side of mischievously _creepy._ "What is it like when he fucks you?"

Squalo nearly falls off the balcony.

\--

When she's not trying to kill him with metaphorical curveballs, she's killing him with methodical torture disguised as spontaneous acts of kindness. 

Squalo is certain of this when Bianchi douses his wounds in the burn of antiseptic, in the sting and bite of bandages pulled forcefully tight against his skin.

"You're such an _idiot,_ " she chides, swabbing alcohol-soaked cotton over the tender skin of his bloodstained eyelid with an aggression that belies her delicate frame. "Honestly, you remind me of my brother, sometimes. It's a wonder you've _survived_ this long."

The very accusation makes Squalo scream, in a decibel no human vocal cord should be able to reach, " _VOOOIIII!!!_ That _asshole_ and I are nothing alike!"

Bianchi scoffs - Squalo marvels at how she manages to make it sound so crude and so dainty at the same time - and looks down her nose at him in a manner that's both condescending and amused. "That's exactly what _he_ said."

Squalo wonders how Gokudera survived _her._

\--

Some days, she's not trying to kill him at all.

And it's days like these which find them sitting in the yard - Vongola's, Varia's, Cavallone's, it doesn't matter _which_ \- beneath verdant shade and filtered sun.

Bianchi likes to lift her hand, angling it so that the waning sunrays catch the diamond - the one that looks heavier than her hand - on her ring finger, making it glint just _so._

It's times like these she regales Squalo with tales of enemies in pursuit and a badly sprained ankle, of riding piggyback for miles toward the nearest safe house, and how, amid the scent of blond hair tickling her nose and the strength of lean shoulders beneath her arms, she knew that Dino was _The One._

Squalo listens to the story for the two hundredth and twenty-sixth time like it's his first, and knows that _Dino_ knew ten years before _that_ \- when _Poison Scorpion_ had morphed to simply _Bianchi_ on his tongue.

\--

 _"Humanity thrives on war,"_ Mukuro had declared two years ago, hands threading Squalo's hair like a whisper, lips against the shell of his pale ear like venom and promise. _"Peace is an illusionist's game, and God is the greatest illusionist of all."_

And _now,_ Squalo stands on his lover's doorstep, shaking in overwhelming grief and anger. "You fucking _liar,_ " he accuses, Bianchi's tears - shed for a brother she barely knew and could never reach - drying on his crumpled white shirt. "Didn't you aspire to world peace once?"

Mukuro looks at him with jaded eyes and an _I told you so_ smile. "Peace achieved through war isn't _real,_ is it?"

\--

 _Her grief is like an explosion,_ Squalo thinks, watching Bianchi rage with mad, mad eyes. 

She invites herself to his missions - breaking every law, ignoring every order - and Squalo lets her, with the knowledge that he isn't really _letting_ her do what she hasn't already determined to do. 

Because Bianchi inserts her presence into his missions the way she insinuated herself into his life - firing round after round into their enemies without stealth or mercy, in brutal acts of terror and vengeance. 

Squalo parts flesh from cartilage and bone with the edge of his blade, and feels that with each life he takes, he is one step closer to avenging _her._

\--

Three months after Gokudera's death, Squalo finds himself seated on Bianchi's left, in a ballet theater. 

Bianchi sits between Squalo and Dino, dressed entirely in black - more Angel of Death than grieving sister. 

Squalo misses the entire performance in favor of studying Bianchi, who appears completely enraptured by whatever is happening onstage. 

He watches her unwavering gaze and the slight part of her mouth, the way her face remains partially shadowed in the dimmed lights of the hall. She's leaning ever so slightly forward, her fist clenching and unclenching rhythmically on her knee, her breaths shaky, like she might _break_ at any moment. 

Squalo watches the play of emotions - yearning and regret, guilt and sorrow - flit across her visage the way the dancers are indubitably doing onstage. And when he spots that first tear slipping down the delicate curve of her cheek, he takes her hand in his and doesn't let go till the show's over. 

"Hayato _loved_ the ballet," she tells him and Dino later, over cigarettes and coffee at a downtown café. "He used to find it highly amusing."

Squalo stares at Bianchi, a perplexed frown creasing the point between his eyebrows. " _Amusing?_ Don't you mean _entertaining?_ "

"That was Hayato," Bianchi answers with a wave of her hand, without really answering at all. She stares into her coffee as if she's trying to divine the future in those black depths; sighs in a way that's terribly, terribly _old._

Squalo watches Dino place his arm around her, pulling her close and kissing the crown of her head, whispering words into her hair Squalo's certain only the two of them can hear. 

He observes the way Bianchi leans into the touch, tucking her face into the crook of her fiancé's neck, the grief-stricken expression adorning Dino's handsome countenance, and wonders why they mourn the loss of someone who never truly _liked_ them in the first place. 

Squalo sips his not-coffee and mourns them both. 

\--

She is teaching Squalo to bake a salted caramel chocolate cake when Mukuro walks in on them.

Squalo's face brightens, gunmetal irises lighting up ever so softly, Cheshire grin emblazoning nearly half his face. "Hey."

Mukuro says nothing, mismatched gaze eyeing the purple cake batter suspiciously, mouth thinned into an unimpressed line.

\--

"You shouldn't encourage her at playing this game," Mukuro admonishes when they are alone in bed, running his fingers along the bumps in Squalo's spine. 

Squalo looks up at Mukuro quizzically, annoyed without really knowing _why._ " _What_ game?"

Mukuro's hand stops at the middle of Squalo's back. "Her playing at being big sister." He begins kneading slow circles into the scarred skin beneath his fingers. "It's rather _cruel,_ don't you think?"

For once, Squalo finds that he has nothing to say.

\--

 _Mukuro is such an **asshole,**_ Squalo inwardly gripes, glaring accusingly at the ball of bright pink yarn in his hands. He's sitting sideways on Bianchi's ratty living room couch, watching the lone thread that's gradually unraveling from the ball - the end of which appears to be the beginnings of a scarf. 

Squalo watches Bianchi work those needles in frighteningly nimble precision, slender brows furrowed the way they always do when she's trying to focus. She's humming a melody under her breath, a tune Squalo recognizes as an old folk song he'd learned as a child.

He grips the yarn tighter, angry that he can't drive Mukuro's words from his head. "Am I a replacement for your brother?" He blurts the question with no conscious thought, silently cursing Mukuro when he realizes what he's just said.

The humming ceases, but the knitting doesn't stop - the _clickclickclick_ of needles are too loud without the accompaniment of her voice. "Don't be stupid, bambino," she utters casually, but Squalo isn't fooled. 

It's impossible to miss the frost in her tone, indicative that asking a second time would be decidedly unwise.

He curses again when he realizes she hasn't answered his question at all. 

\--

"You smoke too much," Bianchi tells him one day, her pillow-like lips turned down sourly. "You're going to get yourself sick."

Squalo stares pointedly at the half-smoked cigarette in her hand, and shoots her a _you've got to be fucking kidding_ expression. 

Bianchi takes a drag of her cigarette, exhales like she owns the world. "You should put that shit out."

Squalo promptly ignores her.

\--

"Look at all this," Bianchi breathes, hands in the pockets of her maroon trench coat, a look of silly fascination decorating her fine visage. 

They are standing in a world of red and green, of brown and yellow - falling leaves and unmoving hours.

 _If I could frame this moment, I would,_ Squalo thinks, _just so I could see her smile forever._

"Just _look,_ " Bianchi exclaims, spinning around with arms wide open, wonderment evident in the high, exuberant lilt of her voice, "and _tell_ me that there isn't a God."

Squalo looks up, past the falling leaves into the infinite sky. "Mukuro said that God is the greatest illusionist of all."

He hears that dainty-crass scoff again, still wonders how she does it.

"I would hardly take anything _Rokudou Mukuro_ says seriously; theology lessons least of all." She walks up to Squalo and clasps his hand - the _real_ one - in both of hers, jade eyes bright with excitement and _life._ "God is an _artist,_ bambino, and the world is his masterpiece. And _this_ \- " She gestures meaningfully around them. "This is no illusion. It's as real as you and me."

And Squalo doesn't _get_ it. He can't reconcile this woman before him - so effulgent and _alive_ \- with the one who's mourned, with tears and murder, the death of her baby brother for months and months.

 _"How?"_ Squalo blurts out before he can stop himself, stumbles away from her hold. "How do you still find joy when _He_ took your family away from you? You mourned him - you _still_ mourn him - and you tear yourself to pieces with guilt when he's always treated you like shit!" 

It _hurts,_ this blinding, scorching pain in his chest, and Squalo suddenly realizes he's angry - so goddamn _angry_ \- at everyone who's left them behind. "And it isn't _just_ about Gokudera. Dokuro's gone, and Mammon and Shamal and _Takeshi -_ " 

And it hurts, because - more than anything - he wants her to never stop smiling. But he can't _comprehend_ it - the way she still finds beauty in such an ugly, malformed world. "How do you still _smile_ when everyone we know and love is _dying?!?_ "

Bianchi smiles, takes his hand again in one of hers. The other smooths the hair from his face, gently tucks a lock behind his ear. "He hasn't taken my family away. Not _entirely._ I still have Tsuna and Maman, the girls and the children. I've still got Lal and Hibari and Dino. And I've got _you._ "

Then, she places her hands on the sides of his face, looks at him with eyes that burn with resolution and _pride._ "There is always _hope,_ bambino. _No matter what._ "

\--

They are married in the chill of December.

Squalo stands upon the tarmac, still dressed in his best man's tux - tie unknotted and hanging loose beneath the collar of his shirt like a dead snake. He is lightheaded from the cold and too much champagne, from the embarrassingly cheesy speech he'd memorized and fucked up anyway, 'cause he's just _horrible_ at things like that. 

Bianchi stands before him, elegant in her ocean blue dress that's visible beneath her unbuttoned gray coat, winding a bright pink scarf around Squalo's neck. "It goes with your hair," she chuckles; teasing, affectionate.

She reaches up to playfully ruffle his silver mane, then pulls him down to place a gentle kiss upon his brow. "Take good care of yourself, bambino," she whispers against the warmth of his skin.

And with that, she turns and rushes to her husband's side. 

Dino takes her hand and together, they climb the steps to his private jet - ready to carry them to Turks & Caicos for their honeymoon.

Squalo watches them go, watches _her_ \- sister, soldier, _friend_ \- and thinks that she's one of the strongest people he's ever known.


End file.
